Sunday, September 29, 2013

The following thoughts were sent in from Al Arsenault, our friend and colleague with the Odd Squad and the Drug Prevention Network.

The 'successes' just seem to keep rolling in. I wonder what the
costs are for making drug use acceptable and even 'safe' for we all know
that when the perceptions of risk about using drugs goes down the
amount of use goes up. Also, what does it cost in terms of the loss of
human potential to keep people stuck in their active addiction rather
than to reclaim that proud and productive person which lies dormant
within the empty shell of a human being who us addicted to these
poisons?

They consider the saving of a few
people from the sea of diseases to be worth it all when legions of lives
can be resurrected from the dirty and deadly cesspool that the (now
soft-lipped) crackers now flounder in.

They say that we, who are willing to lead them into (ill-funded) treatment, lack compassion.

I
cannot wait until the day that the SIS 'studies' have been debunked as
pure scientism so that we can forge ahead with real and meaningful
salvation instead of Band-Aiding these poor souls to death. Perhaps this
is but a pipe dream.

Friday, September 27, 2013

This piece in the Huffington Post, written by Kathryn Marshall, lawyer, columnist and political commentator, was sent to us by Sean Heaney who runs a wonderful and dedicated small recovery centre on the east side of town.

There has long been a debate raging in Canada over how best to help
people who are addicted to dangerous, illegal drugs. It's been played
out in the court rooms and among politicians and policy makers on
repeat, yet we don't seem to be getting closer to actually helping
addicts in the Downtown Eastside recover.

All it takes is one trip over to the Downtown Eastside and you can
see for yourself that centres like Insite are doing little to get the
addicts off the street and into places where they can get off drugs and
get their lives on track. Arguably, places like Insite are actually
making addictions worse by enabling the drug use and sending the message
that it's "okay" to use drugs, so long as it's done "safely."

The Downtown Eastside is an extreme example that represents only a
small part of the problem. Drug and alcohol addiction are serious
problems in communities across the country that often exist in privacy
behind closed doors, not in full view on street corners.

Marshall Smith is an addiction expert who knows first-hand what it's
like to be stuck in the depths of an addiction. Ten years ago he was a
successful political staffer with a bright career ahead of him. Then
someone offered him some cocaine, and he was instantly hooked. His life
derailed and he spent years living as a homeless addict, including in
the Downtown Eastside. Smith recovered, and is now the Manager of
Corporate Development and Community Relations for Cedars at Cobble Hill, an addiction treatment center on Vancouver Island.

According to Smith, in order to craft a successful strategy to deal
with addiction, government policy makers need to be talking to people
who have actually beat their addictions and are living in long-term
recovery. "If they want to help individuals and communities recover,
they need to listen to people in recovery from this disease. They need
to ask people in recovery how they got well and what is required to
successfully support yourself in recovery" says Smith.

The problem that Marshall sees with current drug policies and
programs is that they are focused on the maintenance of people's
addictions and disease prevention, not on the recovery. The questions
policy makers seem to be asking is "how can we make it safer for addicts
to do drugs?", not "how can we get addicts off of drugs and help them
get their lives together?"

So instead of developing more recovery programs, more programs are
developed that give addicts access to drugs and tools that keep them
stuck in the depths of their addictions.

Neal Berger, the Executive Director of the Cedars Cobble Hills
Treatment Center, is calling on the government to fund and execute a
national research study on people who are living in long-term recovery
from their addiction. He sees real value in studying people who are
successfully managing their illness. It's this valuable insight that can
lead to effective policy to help addicts achieve recovery.

Berger is encouraging the government to sit down and talk to people
who have overcome their addictions. "Like many other diseases,
addiction is a chronic illness that needs to be rigorously managed
through participation in recovery focused programs" says Berger.

Smith likens this approach to any other strategy one would employ to
beat a disease, asking "can you imagine building a cancer strategy
without engaging cancer survivors?"

Getting addicts into recovery is easier said than done. Smith knows
all too well the challenging road it takes to get there, and a system
that enables addictions certainly doesn't make it any easier. A system
that actively pushes addicts towards recovery and draws on the real
experiences of those who have recovered could make all the difference.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

PAM McCOLL, who iss the local push behind SAM - Smart Approaches to Marijuana - has set this Letter to the Editor, which the Sun will publish tomorrow or Monday.

Harper needs to stop cracking jokes and take responsibility for embarrassing the nation.

Early this year UNICEF revealed that more Canadian kids smoke marijuana
than anywhere else in the western world and the Prime Minister is
cracking jokes about Sir John A. MacDonald

and his( Harper's) own
sobriety.

A UNICEF report released in the spring of 2013 ranked Canada first out
of 29 countries on the percentage of young people smoking pot. 28 per
cent of the 11 - 15-year-old Canadian children surveyed said they had
smoked marijuana during the last year. This is an embarrassment for our
country and a very sad comment on the effect the Harper government has
had on prevention and education. This is a public health crisis and
political pundIts are arguing over legalization and decriminalization
when the majority of the pot market is under age and will continue to be
regardless of effort to legalize. The legalization of marijuana could
well increase access and availability to the youth market and enhance not
dilute the criminal distribution of pot in this country.

CNN ( Anderson Cooper ) news reported that in the State of Colorado
three young people died from synthetic marijuana use and 150 were
hospitalized this week but that went pretty much unreported in this
weeks Canadian media.

Few of the 90% of Canadians who don't use marijuana understand what
legalization or decriminalization looks like and the discussion needs to
move to what commercialization, and normalizing marijuana would mean to
our kids. Anyone who downplays the risks and harm marijuana poses to
youth will at some point in the near future be called out. In the
meantime where on earth is Health Canada and the advocates for public
health in this country ? Politicians sit down until this country has had
a change to discuss this in depth and say no if someone asks you to
sign a call for referendum at this time.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Is InSite Really All It's Cracked Up To Be?

Ten years ago this week, Insite, North America's first
supervised drug injection site, opened at 139 East Hastings in
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, thanks mainly to two men, Dr. Julio
Montaner and Thomas Kerr of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence
in HIV/AIDS.

It's an amazing story.

Since 2003, folks in Canada's most drug-infested neighbourhood have
been buying heroin, cocaine and crystal meth on the street, strolling
into InSite and shooting-up under the watchful eye of government nurses.
All in the name of harm reduction, a philosophy of addiction treatment
through enablement.
How'd they do it?

Early last decade, Montaner and Kerr lobbied for an injection site.
In 2003, the Chretien Liberals acquiesced, gave the greenlight to B.C.'s
Ministry of Health, which, through Vancouver Coastal Health, gave
nearly $1.5 million to the BC Centre (that's Montaner and Kerr, you
remember them) to evaluate a three-year injection site trial in
Vancouver.

Voila! InSite was born.

If the three-year trial was successful, or in other words, if
InSite's chief lobbyists, who received $1.5 million from taxpayers to
study its pros and cons, concluded that InSite was a good fit for
Vancouver, the provincial government would consider funding it in
perpetuity. Amazing.

Through Freedom of Information legislation, I obtained a copy of the
$1.5 million contract, which tasked the BC Centre to "evaluate the
process, impacts and economic elements" of InSite and note "any adverse
events that may occur."

Yet every study produced by the BC Centre since 2003 has cast InSite
in a positive light. Every study. And the BC Centre is very protective
of its conclusions.

For example. In 2009, the BC Centre released a report summarizing 33
InSite studies, all co-authored by Thomas Kerr, all singing InSite's
praises. At that time, I interviewed Kerr
who bristled at my questions, claiming that his researchers "passed the
test of independent scientific peer review and got our work published
in the best medical journals in the world, so we don't feel like we need
to be tried in the popular media."

I asked him about the potential conflict of interest (lobbyists
conducting research) and he ended the interview with a warning. "If you
took that one step further you'd be accusing me of scientific
misconduct, which I would take great offense to. And any allegation of
that has been generally met with a letter from my lawyer."

Was I being unfair? InSite is a radical experiment, new to North
America and paid for by taxpayers. Kerr and company are obligated to
explain their methods and defend their philosophy without issuing veiled
threats of legal action.

In the media, Kerr frequently mentions the "peer review" status of
his studies, implying that studies published in medical journals are
unassailable. Rubbish. Journals often publish controversial studies to
attract readers -- publication does not necessarily equal endorsement.
The InSite study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, a
favourite reference of InSite champions, appeared as a "letter to the
editor" sandwiched between a letter about "crush injuries" in
earthquakes and another on celiac disease.
Yet Kerr thunders away like Moses. Where did he obtain this astonishing sense of entitlement?
Two words: the media.

The reportage on InSite by Vancouver's print and broadcast media does
not meet, by any definition, basic standards of professional
journalism. It's been shameful.

When the BC Centre stages a press conference, it's always the same
formula. A handful of Kerr-authored studies and an obligatory recovering
addict who owes his life to InSite. The reporters in attendance nod
along and write or broadcast the same story with the same quotes and BC
Centre statistics.
If a story involves an InSite skeptic such as Dr. Don Hedges, an
addictions expert from New Westminster or David Berner, a drug treatment
counsellor with more than 40 years of experience, it almost always
includes a familiar narrative propagated by the BC Centre. InSite
opponents are blinded by ideology; conservative moralists who care
little about the poor and addicted. InSite proponents, on the other
hand, are pure and unburdened, following the facts and relying on
science.

Really? What kind of "science" produces dozens of studies, within the
realm of public health, a notoriously volatile research field, with
positive outcomes 100 per cent of the time? Those results should raise
the eyebrows of any first-year stats student.

And who's more likely to be swayed by personal bias? InSite
opponents, questioning government-sanctioned hard drug abuse? Or
Montaner, Kerr and their handful of acolytes who've staked their careers
on InSite's survival? From 2003 to 2011, the BC Centre received
$2,610,000 from B.C. taxpayers to "study" InSite. How much money have
InSite critics received?

There has never been an independent analysis of InSite, yet, if you
base your knowledge on Vancouver media reports, the case is closed.
InSite is a success and should be copied nationwide for the benefit of
humanity. Tangential links to declining overdose rates are swallowed
whole. Kerr's claims of reduced "public disorder" in the neighbourhood
go unchallenged, despite other mitigating factors such as police
activity and community initiative. Journalists note Onsite, the
so-called "treatment program" above the injection site, ignoring
Onsite's reputation among neighbourhood residents as a spit-shined
flophouse of momentary sobriety.

Where's the curiosity? Where did these reporters learn their craft?
The BC Centre won't answer your questions? Then ask the politicians who,
unlike Montaner and Kerr, operate inside the bounds of democratic
accountability.

If InSite works in the Downtown Eastside, Mayor Robertson, why not
Dunbar, Mount Pleasant or West Point Grey? If, God forbid, you had a
child who became addicted to drugs, Minister Lake, would you refer him
to InSite? Premier Clark, your government funds InSite yet shuns many
abstinence-based treatment programs. Why? And so on.

For the record, my opposition to InSite is based on the countless
conversations I've had with Downtown Eastside residents over the past
decade, as a journalist, volunteer and friend. In my judgement, public
money is better spent on treatment and recovery facilities outside the
neighbourhood, which is where the vast majority of addicts settle when
they finally decide to quit using drugs.

Ten years later, despite any lofty claims, for most addicts, InSite's just another place to get high.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

While so much of the privileged world finds a quantum of solace in the move to legalize pot, The Odd Squad's Al Arsenault discovered green heaven ain't exactly all it's cracked up to be:

THURSDAY Sept. 5, 2013 -- Contrary to popular belief, marijuana is not a "safe drug," particularly for teens, a new review reveals.

Researchers found that marijuana (cannabis) could be especially harmful for teenagers,
since it affects the addiction processes in their developing brains.
The findings are troubling since marijuana is a popular drug among
teens, the researchers added.

"Of the illicit drugs, cannabis is most used by teenagers since it is perceived by many to be of little harm.This perception has led to a growing number of states approving its legalization and increased accessibility. Most of the debates and ensuing policies regarding cannabis were done without
consideration of its impact on one of the most vulnerable population,
namely teens, or without consideration of scientific data," study
authors Didier Jutras-Aswad, of the University of Montreal, and Dr.
Yasmin Hurd, of New York's Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in
New York City, wrote in a news release from the University of Montreal.

They
added, "While it is clear that more systematic scientific studies are
needed to understand the long-term impact of adolescent cannabis
exposure on brain and behavior, the current evidence suggests that it
has a far-reaching influence on adult addictive behaviors, particularly
for certain subsets of vulnerable individuals."

Marijuana
interacts with the brain through chemical receptors situated in the
areas responsible for learning and management of rewards, motivated
behavior, decision-making, habit formation and motor function. Since the
structure of the brain changes quickly during adolescence, marijuana
can affect how these traits develop, the researchers noted.

In
their review, they examined more than 120 studies on various aspects of
marijuana and the teenage brain, including the biology of the brain,
the brain's chemical reaction to marijuana and the influence of teens'
genetic make-up and environment. They also analyzed previous studies on
the "gateway drug" phenomenon, or an association between marijuana use
and later addiction to other serious drugs and psychosis.

"When
the first exposure occurs in younger versus older adolescents, the
impact of cannabis seems to be worse in regard to many outcomes such as
mental health, education attainment, delinquency and ability to conform
to adult role," Jutras-Aswad explained.

Only
about one in four teenage marijuana users will become dependent on the
drug, which suggests that certain genetic and behavioral factors play a
role in whether or not the drug use will continue, the researchers
found. They added that marijuana dependence can be inherited or result
from other psychological factors.

"Individuals who will develop cannabis dependence generally report a temperament characterized by negative affect, aggressivity and impulsivity, from an early age. Some of these traits are often exacerbated with years of cannabis use, which suggests that users become trapped in a vicious cycle of self-medication, which in turn becomes a dependence," Jutras-Aswad said.

The researchers concluded that marijuana is not harmless, and genetic or psychological screening can help identify those at greatest risk of abusing the drug.

"The
objective is not to fuel the debate about whether cannabis is good or
bad, but instead to identify those individuals who might most suffer
from its deleterious effects and provide adequate measures to prevent
this risk," Jutrus Aswad said in the news release.

"Continuing
research should be performed to inform public policy in this area,"
added Hurd. "Without such systematic, evidenced-based research to
understand the long-term effects of cannabis on the developing brain,
not only will the legal status of cannabis will be determined on
uncertain ground, but we will not be able to innovate effective
treatments such as the medicinal use of cannabis plant components that
might be beneficial for treating specific disorders."

Endorsement

"All treatment centres in B.C. should get involved and support the Drug Prevention Network. As one collective voice we need to send the message that treatment works and it saves lives. There are recovery houses, treatment centers, private, government funded, long term, short term, detox, therapeutic communities etc. Let's help support prevention and help educate the public."